Mark Brown reckons being a blood donor saved his life.
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"I had some pain in my abdomen [in April 2013] and I went off to the GP, and they sent me for an ultrasound and it came back with nothing there so I went on with my life," the Canberra public servant said.
"Then in about June I went to give blood and my iron count was way down and they wouldn't take the blood off me, so I went back to a different GP and they sent me for a CT scan and in that process they found a 10-centimetre mass in my stomach."
Mr Brown counts himself as one of the lucky ones.
Although it cost him his stomach, his spleen and the tail of his pancreas, he managed to to survive the cancer that has claimed so many others.
Digestive cancers emerged as the biggest killer of Canberrans aged between 45 and 84 last year.
The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed malignant tumours of the gastrointestinal system, which includes cancers of the oesophagus, stomach, small intestine, liver, pancreas and rectum, killed the highest number of people in the ACT in a decade.
Mr Brown said the high mortality rate of these cancers came down to their difficultly to detect early.
"Generally, by the time they're found it's too late," he said. "The only reason mine was found is because I gave blood..
"Going into that oncology ward at Canberra Hospital and seeing the people who aren't quite so lucky as I am is always quite confronting. When you look at the statistics as well, I know I'm one of the lucky ones."
Overall, heart disease was the most common cause of death for Canberrans last year, particularly in people aged over 85. Digestive system cancers were a close second.
Heart Foundation ACT chief executive Tony Stubbs said the figures were sad but not surprising, despite heart disease being "largely preventable".
"Particularly in the ACT, half the people aren't doing enough recommended activity levels," he said. "Only 10 per cent are eating enough vegetables and also 53 per cent of the population are overweight. When you've got a lot of those risk factors there that cause heart disease, then it's not surprising that heart disease is the No.1 killer of men and women in the ACT."
Intentional self-harm was the leading cause of death in people aged 15 to 44 in the ACT.
About eight in 10 people who took their own lives in the ACT last year were men, and the number of men who died by suicide has risen by 64 per cent in the past decade.
Glen Poole from the Stop Male Suicide project, which will run a forum on stopping male suicide in Canberra next month, said three men a month took their own lives in the ACT.
"There's some great work already being done to tackle this problem and we can, and must, do more to stop male suicide in the ACT," Mr Poole said.
